DENIZ PETERS/SIMON ROSE - Edith’s Problem
Leo Records CD LR 812
Deniz Peters, piano; Simon Rose, Saxophones
Recorded 11-14th March 2016 in Graz, Austria
Released by Leo Records, August 2017
Deniz Peters is a music researcher and musician. His 3-year research project on aesthetics, phenomenology and analysis of musical expression and his 2-year artistic research project on emotional improvisation, are both funded by the Austrian Science Fund.
Simon Rose is a musician, author and researcher from London, but based in Berlin. He performs on baritone and alto saxophones as a soloist and in numerous collaborations in various projects with dancers, visual artists, mixed media, built instruments, site specific performance and more. His research interest is in creative processes.
Considering these two statements may lead one to expect a very considered set of musical compositions, but this is not the case: such an esoteric performance, imbued with such rare spontaneity arises from intelligent comprehension and considerable empathy. This latter was Edith’s problem, of which she wrote in 1917 (Edith Stein, ‘The Problem of Empathy’, 1917) on the subject of intellectual understanding and affections that arise in the interaction between human beings.
At times seeming austere, the presentation is a study of such understanding and responsiveness and there are times when in the silence between tracks one is listening out for notes which might be there, but truly are not. This unformed entity would seem to be a part of the constituents of the entire musical experience, which encompasses the artist and instruments, soundscape and audience and the notion of communication. To this particular end the instruments seem almost to be absent yet one is reminded of their potential by the artists’ interactions with them. One hears the key pads going off, the effects of variable pressure on the keyboard, the total echoing resonances from the piano, the patter of fingertips on the airholes, even the resonance of a breath or a string. All this is there, but still is there so much else.
What there is happens very slowly, so much so that one is often waiting with bated breath, and of course you will perhaps invent, and that too is improvisation.
Reviewed by Ken Cheetham
Leo Records CD LR 812
Deniz Peters, piano; Simon Rose, Saxophones
Recorded 11-14th March 2016 in Graz, Austria
Released by Leo Records, August 2017
Deniz Peters is a music researcher and musician. His 3-year research project on aesthetics, phenomenology and analysis of musical expression and his 2-year artistic research project on emotional improvisation, are both funded by the Austrian Science Fund.
Simon Rose is a musician, author and researcher from London, but based in Berlin. He performs on baritone and alto saxophones as a soloist and in numerous collaborations in various projects with dancers, visual artists, mixed media, built instruments, site specific performance and more. His research interest is in creative processes.
Considering these two statements may lead one to expect a very considered set of musical compositions, but this is not the case: such an esoteric performance, imbued with such rare spontaneity arises from intelligent comprehension and considerable empathy. This latter was Edith’s problem, of which she wrote in 1917 (Edith Stein, ‘The Problem of Empathy’, 1917) on the subject of intellectual understanding and affections that arise in the interaction between human beings.
At times seeming austere, the presentation is a study of such understanding and responsiveness and there are times when in the silence between tracks one is listening out for notes which might be there, but truly are not. This unformed entity would seem to be a part of the constituents of the entire musical experience, which encompasses the artist and instruments, soundscape and audience and the notion of communication. To this particular end the instruments seem almost to be absent yet one is reminded of their potential by the artists’ interactions with them. One hears the key pads going off, the effects of variable pressure on the keyboard, the total echoing resonances from the piano, the patter of fingertips on the airholes, even the resonance of a breath or a string. All this is there, but still is there so much else.
What there is happens very slowly, so much so that one is often waiting with bated breath, and of course you will perhaps invent, and that too is improvisation.
Reviewed by Ken Cheetham
